South Garland High School 2016 graduates Juana Morales and Diego Ayala not only enjoyed success in the auto body collision repair class at South Garland High School, the duo also placed first in a statewide competition. Students all over Texas were asked to design and create a car hood and Morales and Ayala won the competition.
Mark Baty, teacher of the auto body collision repair class at SGHS said that Morales and Ayala were the kind of students that a teacher needs only to tell them the assignment and then get out of their way.
“These two were the first to get their project finished and they spent the rest of the time helping other students,” he said. “They are just excellent, good, down to earth, quality students.”
Ayala has alw
ays been interested in cars and enrolled at Lakeview Centennial High School as a freshman so that he could enter the auto body repair class as a sophomore. That year, the district moved the class to SGHS so Ayala transferred there. He made the point that the class is great for students that learn better through hands-on training.
Morales especially enjoys the creative side of auto body work and has an interest in other types of art such as culinary.
“There are so many opportunities out there and so many ways to express yourself.” Morales said.
For the last two years, the students have displayed their work at the Wheels of Hope Car Show and this is where Lee and Jo Ann Brumit, owners of KARLEE in Garland, became interested in the program.
The second year, the Brumits acquired the hood designed by Morales and Ayala which is a beautiful depiction of a Native Ameri
can man. It was a perfect addition at KARLEE as Garland ISD students had been commissioned to create art when the company moved into its new building.
Lee said that all of the hoods that the students brought to the show were great.
“They have some very, very talented students out there,” he said.
He added that the hood was a “beautiful piece of art” and that it required “a lot of skill and ingenuity and vision to come up with the idea.”
Jo Ann, who has an art background, was impressed by the students’ technique.
“I recognized some of the technique they used and could appreciate the talent and the vision that went into it, especially as high school students as opposed to someone later in life,” she said.
Baty, who has been teaching this class for seven years and moved from LCHS to SGHS to continue teaching it, said that the class gains popularity every school year.
“For next year, the cutoff number for enrollment was 180 and we had 80 more kids who wanted to be in the class but couldn’t get in,” Baty said.
The class not only provides graduates a marketable skill but can also serve as a springboard to jobs after high school graduation. The other auto body repair teacher, Craig Baughman, who has been teaching the class for 24 years, can name students who took the class and started to work in shops after graduation and are now running the shop.”
“There are dozens of them,” Baty said. “They are making great money doing what they want to do.”